Blog / 14.01.2017

8 Trend-Proof Design Techniques to Take your Work to the Next Level

8 Trend-Proof Design Techniques to Take your Work to the Next Level
Merryn Nethercote
Designer / Project Manager
6 min read

It’s always good to be producing design that looks new and fresh. But trends in the world of graphic design are constantly shifting.

Well, you’ll be happy to know that chasing trends is not the only way of making great graphic design.

Behind every trend, style or movement there are some fundamental principles that sort the good design from the bad design. Learn these principles and you’ll be on your way to a solid design foundation, no matter what happens to be in vogue.

Below are 360South’s top eight trend-proof techniques to immediately elevate your design work.

White-Space

Inexperienced designers tend to have anxiety about blank space.

The impulse is - by not using the space they are missing a chance to design.

In fact, white-space (also known as negative space) is an incredibly important tool and knowing how to use it is the sign of an accomplished designer.

Examine some of your favourite poster designs and look at how much of the space is taken up by nothing. That use of empty space is done to artfully manipulate where the viewer will look.

Negative space is not neutral - it always serves a purpose, and it’s your job to use it to create clarity within your design.

Learn a Little About Fonts

Choosing complementary fonts will go a long way to improving your graphic design work.

Typography is a whole field in itself, so to attempt to sum it up in a single section would be a disservice. However, below we’ve done our best to create a quick crash course that will help to put you ahead of 90% of your competition.

  • Learn the basic types of fonts and the fundamental theories behind them. Learning the terminology now will help you search for what you need later.
  • Always consider the purpose of what you're designing when selecting your fonts. Aim to match the typography to the mood of your design (again Google is your friend here).
  • If your design requires a fancy, intricate font - use it in the heading, and make sure it’s not too complex that it become unreadable. It is essential - design 101- that your body text (paragraphs) are always clean and legible.
  • Never use more than 2 or 3 fonts per project/brand when you are starting out, many designers keep this as a rule throughout their careers to keep designs clean.
  • When pairing your fonts, go for different weights within the same font family (bold, italic, light), or pair font styles that are completely different – sans serif with a decorative font. When pairing contrasting fonts it’s best to find a common feature such as sharp or rounded edges.
  • Never pair similar fonts – ew.

Limit Your Colour Palette

Without experience in colour pairing, too many colours can look like a dog’s breakfast.

Design can work with a kaleidoscopic colour palette but when it does the colour choices have been carefully considered by experienced designers. It often takes years of experience to develop an excellent sense of colour pairing. Adopting a Harmonious colour palette is a dependable way to help your design appear more professional. Remember to Keep It Simple Stupid.

Often, professional designs will use a deliberately restricted colour palette, simplicity is paramount to maintaining a tight, focussed message.

To get a good sense of how to put together a professional colour palette, tools like Adobe’s Colour Wheel are extremely powerful. It is also a great short cut to use a program’s colour picker tool to grab colours from any other images you are working with. This will help tie all the elements of the design together.

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a part of basic design theory and has been referenced as early as the 18th century. Much has been said about it since then, but you don’t need a full rundown on its history and theory to get something out of it. You just need to know one thing - it works!

And you don’t have to be genius designer to implement it in your work. All it requires is dividing the canvas you are working on into three equal sections, both vertically and horizontally. Then use these lines as a rule of thumb for laying out the most distinctive elements of your design.

Search “rule of third examples” for a better idea of what the effect looks like.

Even if you don’t understand precisely how it works, the rule of thirds is a straightforward, actionable technique to leverage generations of design theory into your own work, instantly.

Less Really is More

Sounds like a cliche but ‘less is more’ could not apply more aptly than to the field of graphic design.

Most graphic design is not just an artistic endeavour. It usually has a commercial goal it wants to achieve.

And the simplest way to achieve your goal, in most cases, is to limit the elements you include in your design.

The more you include on your canvas the more there is for an audience to absorb. And the more information their brain has to sift through, the more likely it is your intended message will get lost.

Of course there are plenty of examples where designers have integrated a complex numbers of elements with effective results. This sort of ability is not easy and it only comes with time and patience. Just as often you will see some of the biggest brands on the planet producing great content with a minimalist approach.

Apple and Google are two prominent cases where companies have taken a minimalist approach to their marketing visuals. Take a page out of their book and don’t let your design lose its message in the clutter.

Create a hierarchy

With good advertising, it is the designer that dictates what the audience see’s, and in what order they acquire the information.

This can be achieved by creating a visual hierarchy within your design. You can give an element greater importance in a number of different ways: size, positioning, colour and more. No matter how you achieve the information hierarchy, it is important that you consider the user experience and what cognitive journey they should go through when viewing your project. Decide how you want an audience to digest the information you are presenting and then work out how you can make that happen.

Contrast is key

A simple way to make your design elements stand out is contrast.

Using similar tones and colours throughout a design can often make it very difficult to decide where to look first, all of a sudden you have a major issue in your message delivery.

When you deliberately choose colours and shades that distinctively juxtapose each other, you’ll find that you have an effective tool to make anything pop..

Composition tells a story

A clear mistake many designers fall into the trap of is overlooking the value of element composition. Every technique covered so far in this article can get a designer to a certain point, but if the elements are arranged on the page with no thought to how they interact with each other, the design will always look amateur.

It doesn’t take a genius to fix it up either. The easiest thing to do is use guides in Photoshop. Line up your text along a few consistent vertical guides and have a method to how far you space your elements from each other. When you create your hierarchy make it consistent. If your elements are not space consistently then there needs to be an appropriate reason.

One of the most powerful things about a structured visual composition is it gives you control of your design. When you’re in control, you’ll have the power to direct the viewer’s eye with even the smallest detail.

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